Riding a seven-match streak, men’s tennis welcomes No. 5 Texas Sunday
Streaks, like records, are made to be broken. And so it was no surprise that sophomore Bruno Rosa’s 14-match win streak came to an end as the men’s tennis team took on No. 43 College of William and Mary last Sunday. Fortunately for Rosa, who is ranked 26th in the nation, his loss did not affect the final result of the match, as the Owls still bested the Tribe 4-3 in Williamsburg, Va.
Rice’s close victory, which came one day after its 5-2 road win over No. 42 Old Dominion University, improved its record to 7-1 on the year. The Owls have won seven dual matches in a row after losing their season opener against the University of South Florida Jan. 27. That streak, however, will face its toughest challenge this Sunday when No. 5 University of Texas comes to Jake Hess Tennis Stadium to face the 24th-ranked Owls at 1 p.m.
Texas is playing red-hot as of late with eight victories in its last nine matches, including a 4-1 bruising of No. 6 University of Southern California. And not only do the Longhorns boast the nation’s second-highest-ranked freshman in No. 18 Kellen Damico, alongside three others in the top 100, but they will undoubtedly be looking for blood. In the past two seasons, the Owls have beaten the higher-ranked Longhorns both at home and on the road. Last year the Owls earned a tight 4-3 win on Feb. 27, 2007, in Austin, Texas, in which then-seniors Ben Harknett and Jason Mok (Hanszen ‘07) stole nail-biting three-set matches from their opponents.
While the Owls have been eyeing this match as a high-water mark for their season, last weekend’s contests were no walk in the park. The Monarchs came into their match having taken four straight matches and were looking to add to that as doubles began. However, senior Filip Zivojinovic and partner sophomore Chong Wang saw that the Owls got off to a hot start, winning their doubles match 8-4. Senior Ralph Knupfer and junior Christoph Mueller, ranked 12th in the country, then followed suit with an 8-5 win over Aleksandr Seleznev and Eidy Igarashi that sealed the doubles point.
Old Dominion did not roll over, however, and quickly tied the match up in singles. Knupfer, ranked 92nd in the nation, put the Owls back in the lead with a 6-3, 6-0 thrashing over Tobias Fanselow at No. 3 while Wang continued his surge with a 6-3, 6-2 defeat of Matt Fawcett at No. 5. With the score standing at 3-1, No. 55 Mueller was given the chance to clinch the win for Rice. However, Igarashi pushed him to a tiebreaker in back-and-forth first set. Fortunately, Mueller kept his head and took the tiebreaker 7-4 before blowing Igarashi away in the second set to win 7-6 (4), 6-0.
With little time to rest, the Owls came out a bit slower the next day against the Tribe. However, the doubles matchups proved to be very similar to singles. Wang and Zivojinovic opened with an 8-3 win over Dominic Pagan and Ben Wirth and No. 2, but sophomore Bruno Rosa and junior Tobias Scheil lost for the second day in a row at No. 3. The deciding game was now at center court, as Knupfer and Mueller sought to take down the 16th-ranked pair of Alex Cojanu and Keziel Juneau. After a nip-and-tuck match, the Owls staved off the Tribe to win 8-6 and clinch the doubles point.
As singles began, the unthinkable happened — Rosa dropped his singles match. For the first time this year, the sophomore sensation could not defeat his singles opponent, falling 7-5, 6-0 to Cojanu. Although the Owls could have folded in light of this surprising loss, Mueller and Zivojinovic saw to it that Rice would not lose any momentum, winning their matches and pushing Rice’s advantage to 3-1. The Tribe’s Richad Wardell then dropped sophomore Dennis Polyakov 6-2, 6-4 to bring them within one. But at No. 5, Wang battled back from a first-set loss to take the second one and pull ahead in the third 5-4 on serve. Four straight serves later, Wang had won the set, and the Owls had taken the match.
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